


The Ghoul and the Game

by writting_mistakes



Series: The Amity Park Haunting [4]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Multi, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24123049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writting_mistakes/pseuds/writting_mistakes
Summary: The town of Amity Park is under attack by ghosts, but everyone knows that by now. For dozens of years, Amity Park citizens cowered away in their homes, hoping that they wouldn’t get haunted, until a hero rose up to fight against the ghosts, a hero by the name of Jason Baxter. As things begin to die down and the town returns to normal, Jason is suddenly murdered by a mystery ghost. Now, the torch has been passed on to his irresponsible, and newly orphaned son, Dash. To complete his ghost fighting training, Dash is taken in by the Fenton family, none other than his father’s former partners, as they teach him how to uphold his father’s legacy, but they unwittingly are harboring a ghost in their midst....After escaping from Skulker and Dash, Danny hides out in his human identity, resolving to stop using his power in order to protect himself from being attacked, until his ghost form begins to try to overtake him, making it harder for him to go about his daily life. Now, Danny has to use his powers to stop Skulker from killing him, with just a little bit of help from a certain ghost hunter.
Relationships: Danny Fenton/Sam Manson, Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton, Tucker Foley/Sam Manson
Series: The Amity Park Haunting [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685203
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	1. Damage Control

I slowly open the front door, hoping that no one is around to scold Dash and I for disappearing, then drag him inside and up the stairs. We stumble down the hall, almost managing to make it to Dash’s room when we’re stopped by Jazz, who exits from the bathroom just as we are passing by it. I make eye contact with her, her wide-eyed stare matching my own, and give a guilty little grin before continuing down the hall. Dash swings his door open, shoving off of me to flip down face first on the bed, mumbling something through his pillows.

“What?”

“Thanks,” he says, rolling his face to the side to look at me. I hesitate for a moment, debating about whether or not I should question him, deciding to close the door to keep out any prying ears. “What are you doing?” Dash’s eyes are as wide as saucers as he looks at me, while I lean on the door, recognizing how suspicious this all seems.

“Do you remember anything from earlier?” I ask, ignoring his concerns.

“Huh?” He pauses for a moment, thinking over the events of the last few hours. “I remember bits a pieces,” he replies honestly, sitting up to get a better look at me. “Why? Something happen?”

“It’s just that you were pretty drunk,” I explain, dancing around the issue. “Why were you even out there in the first place?” Dash doesn’t respond, turning his gaze away from me, his jaw clenched in frustration. “It’s just that I know that you and Kwan drink all the time at parties and you guys could probably get beer if you wanted some, so I’m wondering why you’d have to go out to the worst part of to—”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Dash glares at me, indicating that I crossed a line.

“Sorry...” we sit in awkward silence for a bit waiting to see if the other one will do something.

“Your parents,” he starts, rubbing a hand through his hair. “Are they always so... intense?” I chuckle a bit, remembering all of the times that my parents had been too “intense.”

“That’s an understatement,” I laugh. Glancing over at him, I wring my hands nervously, wondering if it’s okay to ask him another question. “Hey can I ask you something?” I don’t give him time enough to reject my request, and charge forward into a battle field. “Did something happen? Like, with my parents?” He looks at me with furrowed brows, as if he is unsure whether or not he should share his secrets with me.

“I-I don’t...” he pauses, scanning me up and down with his eyes. “It was nothing. I just got frustrated with this whole thing and stormed off... I should probably go apologize to them.”

“Maybe wait until after you sleep off the hangover that you are definitely going to have.” He smiles at me, a genuine smile that I’ve never seen him wear before, not even when we were little, and it makes me smile too. I turn away from him before he realizes what’s happening and gets pissed, glancing at the mostly barren walls with a few signed football posters hanging above his desk. “You haven’t unpacked.”

“Not much to move in,” he replies, flopping down on the bed in exhaustion. “Not much that I’d want anyways. My old room still had decorations up from when I was a kid, so I just left it behind.” His admission makes me blush upon remembering my room, which is covered end-to-end in memorabilia from my childhood.

“Don’t you have anything from your dad that you want to keep?”

“He wasn’t much of a collector,” he replies, arm slung over his eyes to block out the light. “The stuff of his that I didn’t want I just gave to your parents. I’m sure that Montez’ll probably take them to the house sometime soon to look over everything.” The cavalier way that he talks about his childhood home makes my heart hurt, but I decide not to press the issue.

“Well, I’m gonna go,” I say, awkwardly wrapping up the conversation. “Drink lots of water and get some rest. I’ll tell my parents that you aren’t feeling well.”

“Please don’t tell them that I was drinking,” he begs, his voice soft and unrecognizable.

“Okay.” I turn around and leave the room, shutting it quietly behind me while I try to wrap my brain around our new rapport. As I walk down the hall towards my room, I run into Jazz, who stares at me with a cocked eyebrow, arms folded across her chest.

“What was that all about?”

“Dash got sick, so I helped him home.” I don’t explain any further, leaving Jazz behind to draw her own conclusions, but she stops me.

“Danny you’re bleeding,” she says, concern evident in her tone, and when I look down at my shoulder, I am suddenly reminded of my encounter with Skulker and how I got shot. While it is bleeding, the wound actually doesn’t look that bad, though it might end up leaving a scar. “Let me clean it.” I don’t object as she pulls me into the bathroom and takes out the first aid kit from underneath the sink, pulling out alcohol and some gauze pads to wipe it down with. She lightly dabs at the wound, cleaning the blood away from the immediate area and letting me get a better look at it. The part of the skin just beneath the outer layer is singed and blistering, while the deeper parts of the wound are just fleshy and red, a stark contrast to the bright green bodily fluid that I was oozing earlier.

_It seems to have healed pretty quickly. I wonder if it has something to do with my ghost powers, or if it stitched itself together when I transformed back. Whatever the case, it’s a good thing that it healed or I would’ve had to go to the hospital._

“Danny...” Jazz interrupts my train of thought. “If you got this from a fight, you’d tell me, right?” My stomach sinks, making me feel almost ill as the lie tumbles out of my mouth.

“Yes.” She doesn’t say anything more, likely knowing that I am lying, and finishes cleaning my injury, wrapping a bundle of gauze around the area to control the bleeding.

“You’re all set.”

“Thanks Jazz,” I tell her earnestly, hoping that she forgives me for not being truthful. She smiles and nods, clearly worried and upset for me, but doesn’t say anything more as she walks away, leaving me alone in the bathroom to clean up the mess she left. After I leave, I head downstairs to report in to Mom and Dad, bumping into Dad in the kitchen.

“Danny!” Dad grabs me by the shoulders and hoists me into the air as soon as I enter the room. “Where have you been all day? You missed that ghost kid again. He was right there in Skulker’s hands and he didn’t kill him.” He clenches his fist in anger while looking off into the distance, as if he is still there.

“Yeah...” I say, waiting for him to put me down. “Um, I was with Dash. He’s pretty sick, so I helped him to his room.”

“Oh no,” Mom butts in from where she’s washing dishes at the sink. “Is he alright? Does he need anything?”

“I-I made sure he was okay,” I stammer, overwhelmed at her sudden barrage of questions. “He just wants to sleep, doesn’t really want to be disturbed, so you should probably leave him be.”

“Poor kid,” Dad says, taking a seat at the table. I move to sit across from him, wondering what he is going on about. “He seemed to have gotten frustrated with our training today. I might have pushed him too hard, but considering that he’s sick, it’s no wonder he couldn’t manage it all.”

“With school and ghost hunting, he’s gonna be pretty strapped,” Mom explains. “I hope he’s not going to stay on the football team.”

“Yeah, he won’t be able to handle all of that work,” Dad sighs and I can’t help but feel like I’m missing a part of the conversation.

“The football team?” I ask.

“Dash joined the team over the summer, before Jason passed,” Mom tells me, finishing up with the dishes and wiping off her hands with a towel as she moves to sit next to me. “He’s taken a small leave of absence, but hasn’t quit yet.”

“We’ll talk to him about it, so don’t you worry Danny,” Dad says.

“So what happened with Skulker?” I quickly change the subject before things get too solemn.

“We’re not sure,” Mom says. “Last we heard, he was on the west side hunting that ghost. I doubt he managed to catch him, or else he’d be rubbing it in our faces.”

“But if he can’t do it, I doubt anyone could,” Dad admits. “The only person who stood a chance against Skulker in ghost hunting prowess was Jason.” My blood runs cold.

_He’s as good a hunter as Jason? Ghost Slayer Jason? I gulp loudly, feeling sweat beads at the back of my neck as the stress of being hunted to the death begins to wear on me. How the hell am I supposed to stand a chance against that?_


	2. Delaying the Inevitable

Over the next few days, I forgo using my ghost half for any reason, worried that as soon as I do use it, Skulker will sneak up on me and that’ll be it. He isn’t the only one that I’m avoiding, though, as Sam and Tucker are still mad at me, but with the stress of a lingering psychopath on my tail, I don’t feel like dealing with that problem. Dash continues his training with Mom and Dad, which keeps him preoccupied in the evenings so that we don’t run into each other, even though I can’t help but wonder what we’d say if we did.

Snapping out of my daze, I force my eyes to focus on the textbook in front of me, trying my best to absorb the words from the sentence that I’ve read over for the tenth time now. “Ugh!” I groan in frustration, giving up on my attempts to study and heading downstairs to get a snack. _Since Skulker put his hit out on me, I haven’t been getting much sleep, and my schoolwork has been suffering because of it, but my biggest worry is that as soon as my parents are able to, they’ll be obsessively hunting me as well, meaning that I’ll have three highly trained ghost hunters on my tail at all times when I’m in my ghost form. Luckily, though, I don’t actually need to use my ghost form, so I can just stop using it, at least until everything calms down and Skulker gets off my back._ Once I make it into the kitchen, I pass by Jazz, who is finishing up her, no doubt, incredibly difficult math homework, meaning that she doesn’t look up at me as I prod towards the fridge. “Hey Jazz.”

“Hey,” she says, her gaze unmoving from where she looks at her notebook. I reach to open the door to grab some juice... and can’t find my hand. I look down at myself, hoping that my sleep depravation is just causing hallucinations, but my fears are realized as I stare down at my transparent figure. I slap my hands over my chest, trying to make sure that I’m still here and feel the thin fabric of the t-shirt that I was just wearing. I duck down underneath the island, hoping to crawl out of the kitchen without being noticed, but Jazz’s voice stops me in my tracks. “Hey Danny, have you... where’d you go?” I hold my breath, not wanting to make a sound as I slowly creep out of the room and into the hallway, breathing a sigh of relief when I manage to get out. I hold my hand up to my face, trying to discern it from my surroundings, but if I didn’t know better, I’d think that my hand had completely vanished. Exhausted, I rest on my knees, trying to will my body back into visibility.

“What are you doing?” I hear Dash’s voice behind me and I spin around to look at him. He stares directly at me, indicating that he can, in fact see me, and I feel my face light up in joy.

“Ah, I was looking for something,” I lie, too relieved to care much about my excuse. “Are you done with your training?”

“Uh, yeah...” he seems a bit weirded out by the animated way that I am speaking, so I try to tone my excitement down a bit. “Your parents gave me the rest of the afternoon off. I guess they are going to visit the mayor.”

“Probably to get their ghost hunting ban lifted,” I reply. “Well, I have to finish studying.” I turn to leave, placing my hand on the railing, only to realize that it is still missing, so I spin around, hiding them behind my back as I come up with something to say. “Um, actually, I have a question.”

“Yeah?” I rock back and forth on my feet, trying to focus my energy on distracting Dash and controlling my powers simultaneously.

“Um... I don’t know how to ask this...”

“Well just ask it already, you’re starting to piss me off.”

“I-I was wondering if you’re gonna stay on the football team?” I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, leaving both of us completely stunned. _What the FUCK? Why ask him that of all things?_

“Why do you care?” He asks, folding his arms over his chest in an intimidating gesture.

“Oh, you’re right, I don’t,” I backtrack, immediately regretting my decision.

“Then why’d you ask?” He questions, securing me in place with a sharp glare. I reflexively put my hands out in submission, to stop him from coming near me, but he doesn’t move.

“I...I shouldn’t have... I’m sorry.” I look away from his face and down towards the floor, doing a double take when I see that my hand has returned to normal. “I-I should go.” I scurry out from underneath his sharp gaze, racing up the stairs as quickly as I can and slamming the door to my room when I get there. _I am a fucking idiot._

I don’t get a chance to brood any longer, as I feel my body begin to float off of the ground uncontrollably. I swing my arms and legs violently, trying to maneuver myself towards a surface to anchor myself, but just end up flailing around awkwardly in the air. Folding up my arms like a pouty toddler, I surrender to the absurdity of my power, laying still on my back and staring up at the translucent stars that are situated on my ceiling until I calm down. Finally, my powers let up and I come crashing to the ground in a blur, landing on my side with a thud.

“Danny?” Jazz yells from beneath the stairs. “You okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine!” I make a break for the door, pulling it open and leaning over the stair railing to speak with her. “I just dropped my text book.”

“Oh, okay,” she pauses. “Hey how’s you’re arm?”

“Fine now,” I smile at her. “Thanks for the help.”

“Sure.” She turns back towards the kitchen, leaving me alone in the hallway to deal with my malfunctioning powers.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I ask my ghost self, as if it is standing in the room with me. “You were working fine a few days ago, so why is everything going to shit now?” I try to calm my anxiety as I descend the staircase, heading towards the living room to take a load off, but I suddenly fall through the floor, as if my ghost half is responding to me. When I land, I’m in the basement, for the first time since the incident, staring straight at the ghost portal that gave me my powers in the first place. I gaze into the empty metal hole, with deep shadows cast across the inside of the machine, making it look angry and menacing. As I stare into it, I feel my anxiety getting the better of me.

_Damn it. I can’t stay here. I have to get out of here._

Looking around, I notice the garage is in even more disarray than it was when I was down here the other week, and that I am trapped in by a pile of garbage that doesn’t let up until it hits the far wall of the room. Body trembling, I try to make my way up the piles, crawling towards the basement door as quickly as possible, but as I make some progress, the clutter eventually collapses in on itself and pulls me down with it, trapping me within a landslide trash. As I take stock of all of the trash surrounding me, a random tv crushing my arm, old fast food containers pressed against my chest, random metal ghost hunting equipment piled just above my head, I feel my breathing start to quicken. I try to pull myself out from underneath the rubble, forcing my arm from underneath the tv, but it makes things worse, as the rubble from up top falls at the sudden motion to barricade my body even more. Closing my eyes, I try to come up with a solution, despite the loud pounding of my heart distracting my brain.

All of the sudden, there is a flash of blue light that snaps my eyes open and I feel my body starting to shift into the ghost form involuntarily. “No-no-no-no— Wait!” I yell, but my body won’t listen to me. Soon, my transformation is complete and I don’t even have to look down at myself to know that I’ve become my ghost half; I can feel the difference by this point. _Okay. It’s okay. Calm down._ I close my eyes and shake my head, ridding my mind of as many thoughts as I can. _I’m already transformed, nothing I can do about it now. Let’s just use this to get out. No one will have to know._

I try to phase myself up through the rubble and out of the basement, but can’t control my power yet, so it ends up sending me through the floor against my will. Unsure of what exactly is happening, I turn off my phasing power and feel myself being launched upwards, breaking through the Earth’s surface and flying up through the air until I come crashing down onto the hard asphalt. When I’ve recovered my senses, I open my eyes to see where I am and find myself in the middle of the street, looking up into the headlights of an on coming car, who swerves to avoid me, crashing into a streetlight as he goes. I hurry to stand up, checking to see if the driver is okay, but he’s passed out on the steering wheel with blood trickling down his face.

“Oh god...” I mutter, running my hand through my hair. “Someone! Someone get help!” The crowd of people that has formed around the incident stands back in horror, looking at me with terrified expressions. “Please! One of you...” As I reach out to them, people start to lurch away from me, a few of them even running off down the road, but no one calls for help. I reach towards the man in his car, avoiding looking at his face while I dig around in his pockets for a phone to call the police with. When I find it, I pull it out of his pocket and quickly dial 911.

“911...y...emergency?”

“There’s been an accident!” I shout, but all I hear on the other end is static. “A man drove into a light post and he’s unconscious and bleeding from the head. Please... come help him.” I hang up the phone before I can do anymore damage and fly away from the scene. _Shit. SHIT. I fucked up. Shit!_ I don’t notice that I’m flying erratically until I crash into the roof of a random apartment building, which knocks me down onto the rooftop and leaves me sprawled out on my back, head spinning with regret and fear. _I-I might’ve killed that man. If I could’ve... if I could’ve done something... if I would’ve just..._ Once I’ve had time to calm down, I move to take stock of my surroundings, sitting down on the edge of the building for a better vantage point, while the reality of the situation settles into my thoughts. I see the lights of an ambulance and hear the ever approaching siren pass by the building beneath me, making me feel slightly relieved, despite all of the guilt. Suddenly, I feel a chill run down my spine that makes me shiver in the cold night air, and a small plume of smoke forces its way from my mouth as I let out a gasp.

“Ghost child,” I hear Skulker’s low, menacing voice from behind me as I feel the presence of a gun leveled at my head. “You have evaded me for longer than any prey has. It is commendable, though a bit disappointing. I thought that you might try to put up a fight.”

“If you’re gonna do it, then stop talking,” I say. “I don’t want the last voice I hear to be yours.”

“It’s a pity,” Skulker mocks, ignoring my request. “For all of the potential that you have, you would waste it on running away until you can’t run anymore?”

“I’m not running,” I retort. “I’m just tired.”

“And that’s your excuse?” Skulker cackles.

“Are you done?” I ask, turning around to look at him, but our conversation is disrupted by a loud blast. A line of green energy surges between Skulker and I, making me lose my balance and fall off the edge of the roof, but I catch myself midair and fly out into the middle of the road to survey my surroundings. Skulker is up on the roof, hunched over in pain and covering his right eye, while the source of the blast stands shaking in his position on the sidewalk a few feet away. He turns to look at me, arms still extended towards Skulker, but slowly turns them to level his blaster at me. I hold my hands up in surrender, hoping that he will back off if I don’t resist, but as I examine him, I notice that he has tears streaming down his face.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I saw you...” he says through gritted teeth. “That man swerved into the post because of you.”

“I know,” I say solemnly, still in too much shock to fully register what happened. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You’re evil!” He shouts.

“I’m not evil...” I whisper, hardly loud enough for him to hear.

“You’re a ghost.”

“I’m not evil,” I speak a little louder this time.

“Urgh...” Skulker growls from his position on the roof. “You...” he stands upright, still clutching tight to his metallic eye socket, but something is wrong. Beneath his grasp, bright green blood oozes from the cut on his eye, the same kind that I bled just a few days prior.

“Dash, we have to get out of here!” I fly over to where Dash is still holding his weapon up to me, and grab his wrist, pulling him along behind me as we try to get away from Skulker.

“Get back here, Welp!” Skulker bellows from behind us, but I don’t stop to look back and neither does Dash. After a few minutes of running, I feel him start to lag behind me, and duck us into an alley to let him catch his breath.

“Why...” he breathes heavily, bent over with his hands on his knees in exhaustion. “He was... bleeding green... what the hell is going on?”

“I don’t have time to explain, Dash,” I say, peering out around the corner to check for Skulker’s presence. “But we have to stop him. He’s gonna have you in his sights now that you’ve managed to hurt him.” I turn around to look at Dash, who stares at me with a blank expression on his face. “Did you hear me?”

“This feels... familiar,” he mutters, snapping me back to last week when he was drunk. “We’ve done this before...”

“No we haven’t,” I dismiss, turning around to avoid his gaze. “Listen, we have to deal with Skulker, right now. What ever else you want to talk about can wait until this is all over. Like I said, Skulker is going to come after you now, so you have to help me defeat him.”

“Why would he be attacking me right now?” Dash asks. “I’m a human. Why would he attack his own kind?”

“No, Dash, you don’t get it,” I face him once again, this time more determined. “Skulker is a ghost.”


	3. The Most Dangerous Game

Dash runs behind me on the path towards the house, while I explain to him the plan. “Skulker isn’t going to be targeting me so much, now that you’ve hurt him, so we can use you as a decoy—”

“A decoy?”

“Yes, I said that,” I scoff. “And you will distract him.“

“Wh...what?” He huffs, completely winded. “That’s not fair! Why don’t you... be the decoy? I’ll be... the one taking... him down.”

“Well if you wanna try that and see how far you get, be my guest,” I say, fully aware that he’ll still be succumbing to my intent either way. “The plan is, we get him out in the middle of the city, which is close to Fenton Works, then, I expose him as the ghost he is in front of the mayor and everyone else.”

“Then what?” He pants.

“Then...” I think for a moment, considering my options. “Either one of us could probably take him down. Or maybe the Fentons will do something about it.”

“They can’t... they’re on leave...” he remarks, making me smile a bit. “Wait!” He stops in his tracks, grabbing me by the tail and lurching me backwards, compressing my body into my tail like a slinky.

“Hey!” I slap his hand off of me. “Don’t grab my tail!” The words tumble out of my mouth before I realize how insane they are.

“This way...” he breathes, pointing down an empty and darkened street. “It’s faster and more discrete.”

“We don’t need discretion, we need to attract his attention.”

“And how do you assume we’re gonna keep all of these civilians safe if we don’t use at least a hint of discretion?” He asks, folding his arms over his chest in frustration. “Let’s just use this side road until we get over to Fenton Works, it leads us right there.” He starts running down the road ahead of me, forcing me to book it to catch up.

“Why do you even know about this shortcut?” I ask.

“Because, I used it the other day,” he explains. “I... snuck out... didn’t want the Fenton’s tracking me down.”

“Where were you going?” I ask, trying to get him to admit that he was drinking; trying to tarnish his image as this brave, bold hero, at least to myself.

“I didn’t know...” he says. “I just... ran away. Then... I made the mistake... of getting drunk in... an alley... in a bad part of town. This kid came... he helped me home.”

“Oh.”

“He’s a Fenton,” Dash continues. “Name’s Danny... I was being an idiot... drinking my pain... away... and we fight a lot... but he still... helped me... so...”

_I didn’t even know he knew my name, let alone thought this way about me._

“You remind me of him...” he says.

“What?”

“Just... you look alike... and you talk similar... but that’s why... I didn’t shoot you... in case you were wondering...”

“I thought you said that you fight a lot?”

“That doesn’t mean... I want him to die...”

“Oh,” I mutter.

“Almost there...” We make our way out onto the main road right in front of the house, stopping just before we step out into the open for Dash to catch his breath. “We... we should wait here until we see him.”

“Yeah, I should,” I say. “You, on the other hand, should go out and be the bait.”

“We didn’t agree to that!”

“Well, either you play the bait, or we wait until Skulker comes and surprises us.” He stands with his arms crossed, considering.

“You have to make sure you don’t let him kill me, got it?” He threatens.

“Fine, fine.” I push him forward onto the street and dart back into the shadows.

“Hey everyone!” Dash screams, trying to gather as much attention as he can. “Get off the streets, there’s a ghost!” He runs up to couples and tries to push them away from the damage zone. “Seriously get out of here!” A loud bang interrupts him, coming from Skulker’s heavy metal boots that concave the asphalt underneath where he lands. Before Dash even has a chance to react, Skulker fires his weapon on him, landing a blow on his shoulder and making him fall back onto the concrete. Around him, the panicked crowd begins to disperse, running away as fast as they can, none of them stopping to check on Dash’s condition. I almost act on my urge to go and help him, but know that I need to stick to the plan.

_Okay... just focus on phasing through the armor. Just focus... Focus..._ I calm my mind and close my eyes concentrating on my phasing power, then open them again, narrowing in on Skulker as he marches towards Dash with his arm raised. Before he has a chance to shoot him, I launch myself over to their location, activating my power, before colliding into Skulker’s suit and dragging him out of the metal capsule, landing on the ground on my back with him on top of me. _I did it! Oh my god I really did it!_

I realize that I reacted preemptively when I see Skulker’s ghost body. His skin is pale, almost translucent, especially at the tail, and is stretched out over a thin skeleton, as if it has been compressed down by a vacuum seal. But I can’t focus on that, as I’m distracted by the massive hole protruding from his chest, with blackened blood surrounding the wound and bright red veins winding along the inside of his chest cavity, like a bunch of hyper-realistic tattoos. His face, however, is hollowed out around the skull, with only bits of skin hanging off of the bones, eyes protruding out from the empty sockets like snail’s eyes, one of which is now mangled and bleeding green, sticky blood, which drips down his face and onto my body.

“Oh god,” I hear Dash whimper from his place on the sidewalk, before he starts retching, reacting in the exact way that I want my body to.

“Welp...” Skulker growls through gritted teeth. “Even in this form, even as weak as I seem, I am still stronger than you could ever hope to be.”

I am suddenly reminded of my last encounter with a ghost, the tentacle ghost; his words to me during that fight bounce around on the inside of my skull. _“You created a rift between the ghost world and the human one.”_ An idea pops into my head, forcing me to use all of my strength to kick Skulker’s ghost form off of me and phase down through the ground towards my family’s basement.

_He’s right. I can’t beat him in a fight. I don’t know how. But maybe I can send him through the portal._

I hurry over to the device, which is still wide open and investigate the inside. All of the lights on the interior buttons are off and they don’t turn on when I press them. _It’s not working..._ I fly out of the machine and look around the outside, settling my gaze on two large buttons on the right exterior, but before I’m able to approach them, a wave of energy crashes into my back and rockets me into the wall.

“You thought that you could buy yourself some time by hiding out in here?” He bellows angrily, firing another blast into my shoulder and making me bleed. “You cannot outrun me. It is your fate to die by my hand.” I stagger to my feet and lean against the wall, clutching my shoulder as I stare at the fully equipped Skulker in his suit of armor.

“I exposed you to the world,” I say weakly. “You’ll never be the famous ghost hunter that you once were. You’ll never be Skulker: the greatest ghost hunter the world has ever known.” He raises his fist to fire another blast at me, but I am standing close enough to the button to hit it without breaking eye contact, and the machine whirs to life.

“You think you’ll be safe inside the Ghost Zone?” Skulker baits. “I will hunt you down and kill you over and over and over again, until you finally return here, where I will hunt you down and kill you permanently.” He fires another shot, narrowly missing my face, but singing my ear in the process. “And then I will kill that pathetic excuse for a ghost hunter for shooting me in the eye.”

Next to me, electricity crackles while a large, swirling void of green nothingness forms within the walls of the portal until it completely encompasses the frame. _I have to find a way to trap him inside..._ As I am thinking, Skulker fires another shot, this time hitting my stomach, and I fall to the floor in the fetal position, crying out in pain.

“Pathetic,” Skulker spits as he stands above me, but he’s cut off when Dash suddenly appears behind him, ramming his shoulder into Skulker’s metal body and sending him flying into the portal. Before I have a chance to thank him, Dash reaches out and smashes his palm into the button marked ‘close’ and the large steel doors slam shut. We both breathe a sigh of relief, reveling in the moment of silence that we’ve just earned, before Dash begins to laugh.

“Ha!” He smiles down at me with a goofy grin on his face. “I told you that you’d be my decoy.” I glare at him for a moment, but he just shrugs his shoulders and continues to chuckle, his laughter becoming contagious and forcing me to join him. We stay where we are, laughing deliriously at our situation, until we finally manage to calm down. He leans over to help me to my feet, while I clutch at my stomach.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Just hurt my shoulder a bit,” he shrugs, wincing as he rolls it out. “You?”

“Just...” I pull back my hand from my stomach to see a trail of blood on my arm, hiding a relatively large gash above my hip.

“Oh god...” his eyes widen as he stares into my wound. “Wh...what do we do? Should I take you to the hospital? Wait, you’re a ghost, you’ll be fine, right?”

“I’m fine...” I groan, resting against the wall.

“...No you’re not.”

“Just leave me alone.” I push Dash away from me and stagger off, pushing off the ground and forming my tail on my way out of the basement.

“Wait!” I ignore his protests and phase through the wall of the basement and out onto the streets. As my vision starts to get blurry, I only have one destination on my mind, so I fly through the air as quickly as possible to get there before I pass out. Once I get to the red bricked apartment complex, I phase through the wall of the top floor, third window to the back, and collapse onto the floor, feeling myself de-transform just before I pass out.

...

“Danny!” Sam’s voice snaps me awake as she hovers mere inches from my face. “Are you okay?”

“Danny what happened?” Tucker asks, leaning over her shoulder. I blink a few times, regaining each of my senses, my sense of pain returning last of all and forcing a low groan to escape my lips.

“Danny?” Sam looks down at me with furrowed brows, her eyes filled with worry while she examines my face from far too close.

“Hey,” I whisper. “You’re kinda close.”

“Oh!” She jumps back, almost banging her head into Tucker’s face had he not been blessed with such quick reflexes. “A-are you okay?” I gingerly press my hand into my stomach, where I feel a small gash that makes me flinch back in pain. Sam takes the cue and lifts my shirt for me, seeing the injury and immediately dropping the shirt down and stumbling away. “O-oh my god.”

“Let me take a look,” Tucker offers, pulling my shirt up once again and examining the wound from afar. “It’s a pretty bad cut Danny. Probably needs stitches. Sam, go get a rag and some rubbing alcohol.” He takes charge of the situation seamlessly. “And wash your hands before you touch anything! Hang in there, Danny, I’m gonna call 911.”

“No!” I grab his hand before he can pull out his phone. “Please just let me explain. Help me stand up.”

“Danny...”

“Please, Tuck?” He pauses for a moment, trying to deny my request, but fails, rolling his eyes as he admits defeat and helps me stand up. Sam walks back into the room with a towel and a bottle of vodka in hand, almost dropping them when she sees me standing.

“Tucker!” She yells.

“Shh!” I hush her.

“You’re not supposed to let him stand, are you?” She asks with a whisper.

“Sam, it’s okay,” I say. “Shut the door for a minute, I need to show you something.” She does as I ask, setting the alcohol down on the table as she approaches me. “I know you guys deserve an explanation first, but it’s probably better if I just show you.” I push away from where I’m leaning on Tucker and limp to the middle of the room.

“Danny...” Sam mumbles, but I don’t give her time to finish before I speak my lousy catch phrase.

“I’m going ghost.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! It’s so amazing to see how much people enjoy this series and I thank you all so much for the support. If you didn’t know, this part was inspired a lot by the short story The Most Dangerous Game, which I absolutely adore, I even named the last chapter after it. I did change quite a bit about the story, but I still used it quite a bit for ideas and, in my opinion, Skulker is the perfect villain for this kind of story. Anyways, the next part of this series is gonna focus more on Danny’s relationship with his friends, so I hope you look forward to that! Thank you all so so much again!


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